life
So this kid of mine.. he's decided that he wants to give this whole being a toddler a shot.. *shakes head* When he turned 21 months, (he's turning 22 months old tomorrow) he learned that he didn't have to do whatever people told him to do. That he had his own thoughts, opinions, and feelings.
"Put your jacket on"
"No, jacket off!"
"Take off your shoes"
"No, shoes on!"
He prefers to put up the most fight for clothes, diapers and going/leaving somewhere. My word for him, for the past month, has been "oppositional". Everyone else sees my sweet little boy and just refuses to believe it.. but wow! When he wants, he can put up a fight.
However, even in this, we've been very lucky. He gave his worst for about two weeks then lightened it up a bit. He's never been "bad" enough or had bad enough timing to really be given a time out even.. Once I left him in his crib, turned out the light (it was day time) and closed the door on him while I counted to twenty. He cried a bit.. was happy to see me returned and he's learned since that if he fights after I say "last chance" that it could happen. I didn't even have to tell him. I'll say, "last chance" and he behaves and says, "off light". Another things I've tried (when he was on the loud screaming phase was to cover my eyes, and count to three... Next time, when he screamed, I gave him the look, and HE covers his eyes and counts to three! LOL!
He's too cute :-) He still HATES diaper changes and fights it. He dislikes taking off or putting on clothes, including jammies, but can be convinced that it's not a choice.. He really likes being oppositional on putting on/taking off coats, hats & mittens but he understands that when it's cold, it's not an option. As long as it's never 20 minutes for any one of those things again, like it was for a couple of weeks, I'm fine. (I really did think I was going to lose my mind!!)
So while things have been changing (aka he's growing up) things are really good. He's absolutely amazing us with everything. His speaking is incredible. We understand ALMOST everything he says. He's not saying things correctly yet but he says things the same way every time. Actually, he's been starting to clear things up even more, which makes it more confusing because it's not like it used to be.. For instance.. he used to say, "bop" for book.. then all of a sudden it changed to "boot". But I realized it was because I was trying to show him that he knew how to say BOO so book wasn't much harder.. The next day "bop" turned into "boot". So he's continuously working on his speech. It amazes us that he works so hard on everything.
He can quickly recognize all the capital letters and most of the lowercase letters. He can also now sing the alphabet song correctly sometimes. He still randomly gets confused at different parts. He also gets distracted easily. He'll be singing along.. then he'll get to "L" and all of a sudden, "L - Lucas!!" (Actually it's still L, Lalas") But he can generally get to S, no problem then he sometimes skips right to W... He used to sing to G then shout, "XYZ!!!" He's even done "1234.. XYZ!!" It's fun for him.
He can also, on a good day, count to 29. He makes it to 13 no problem.. For a while all his teens sounded the same.. but he had learned that life got easy again after 20 :-) so he'd say weird sounds from 13 to 19.. we'd say 20.. then he'd go on, "21, 22, 23" to 29.. But recently he's figured out that the teens have a pattern too! so he can officially count to 29.. but sometimes he goes from 14 to 17.. or from 21 to 23.. *shrug* But he does more than straight counting. He's got a pretty good one to one correlation. He can count objects at least up to 9 well.. But he still has trouble if the objects are all jumbled up. He tends to count one over the actual number.. But he's better improving on that too.
He's been doing great with his books too. He's got quite a few books where he "reads" most of the words. We'll read and stop and he'll fill in the words he knows. Lucas completely amazed Greg today with the reading of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. He can read most of every page! "Moon.. Egg.. Leaf.." "Pop! Tiny Caterpillar" "One apple, still hungry" "Two pears, still hungry".... so on and so on to "a beautiful butterfly!" (He added "a" to that for the first time today :-))
The other impressing he did today was with food. Lucas feeds himself with a spoon and fork really well most of the time. We had fried rice today and he was able to scoop, lift, and feed without spilling anything most of the time! Not bad :-) He still prefers using his hand but if he sees us using a fork or a spoon, he wants to also.. It's good to know he's got a little Nepali in him though ;-)
He's eating well enough. He'll still pretty much eat anything but not a lot of anything..... except sweets.. *shakes head* He has his parents' sweet tooth. He loves chocolate.. We just recently found out that he loves peeps (ew!) But he likes the healthier stuff too. His favorite is still fruits. Can't get enough of it. Blueberries, grapes, strawberries, oranges..... any well... I don't think we've still encountered a fruit he dislikes.. (he loves tomatoes too, or as he calls them, 'nanos')
Hehe.. he likes talking on the phone. It's too cute. He'll told it to his ear, start walking around and talk. "Hellooo!" The first thing he does is tell the person what he's doing. Every time! "Daddy, book, reading." And he'll repeat it until the other person repeats it, showing that they understand what he's saying. LOL! This can be a long process.. Usually involves me repeating him loud enough for the other person to hear me... But this isn't as easy as it sounds because he will not let you take the phone back unless you ask him nicely.
But that brings me to his best quality. He will share with anyone if you ask nicely. You don't ask him to give it to you. You ask him to share. Even his favorite toys.. food.. anything. He let Ashish have a bite of his last peep yesterday! BUT he's learned to say no. He checks to see if he has to share and if he doesn't have to when he doesn't want to, he'll polite say, "no". He is very polite. Says, Please, Thank You, Excuse me (for burps & farts) and he says "Bless you" when you sneeze.
I love my boy. I could continue forever but my back hurts and my hands are cramping :-)
**I was going to write about Kiran leaving but I'm not ready**
"Put your jacket on"
"No, jacket off!"
"Take off your shoes"
"No, shoes on!"
He prefers to put up the most fight for clothes, diapers and going/leaving somewhere. My word for him, for the past month, has been "oppositional". Everyone else sees my sweet little boy and just refuses to believe it.. but wow! When he wants, he can put up a fight.
However, even in this, we've been very lucky. He gave his worst for about two weeks then lightened it up a bit. He's never been "bad" enough or had bad enough timing to really be given a time out even.. Once I left him in his crib, turned out the light (it was day time) and closed the door on him while I counted to twenty. He cried a bit.. was happy to see me returned and he's learned since that if he fights after I say "last chance" that it could happen. I didn't even have to tell him. I'll say, "last chance" and he behaves and says, "off light". Another things I've tried (when he was on the loud screaming phase was to cover my eyes, and count to three... Next time, when he screamed, I gave him the look, and HE covers his eyes and counts to three! LOL!
He's too cute :-) He still HATES diaper changes and fights it. He dislikes taking off or putting on clothes, including jammies, but can be convinced that it's not a choice.. He really likes being oppositional on putting on/taking off coats, hats & mittens but he understands that when it's cold, it's not an option. As long as it's never 20 minutes for any one of those things again, like it was for a couple of weeks, I'm fine. (I really did think I was going to lose my mind!!)
So while things have been changing (aka he's growing up) things are really good. He's absolutely amazing us with everything. His speaking is incredible. We understand ALMOST everything he says. He's not saying things correctly yet but he says things the same way every time. Actually, he's been starting to clear things up even more, which makes it more confusing because it's not like it used to be.. For instance.. he used to say, "bop" for book.. then all of a sudden it changed to "boot". But I realized it was because I was trying to show him that he knew how to say BOO so book wasn't much harder.. The next day "bop" turned into "boot". So he's continuously working on his speech. It amazes us that he works so hard on everything.
He can quickly recognize all the capital letters and most of the lowercase letters. He can also now sing the alphabet song correctly sometimes. He still randomly gets confused at different parts. He also gets distracted easily. He'll be singing along.. then he'll get to "L" and all of a sudden, "L - Lucas!!" (Actually it's still L, Lalas") But he can generally get to S, no problem then he sometimes skips right to W... He used to sing to G then shout, "XYZ!!!" He's even done "1234.. XYZ!!" It's fun for him.
He can also, on a good day, count to 29. He makes it to 13 no problem.. For a while all his teens sounded the same.. but he had learned that life got easy again after 20 :-) so he'd say weird sounds from 13 to 19.. we'd say 20.. then he'd go on, "21, 22, 23" to 29.. But recently he's figured out that the teens have a pattern too! so he can officially count to 29.. but sometimes he goes from 14 to 17.. or from 21 to 23.. *shrug* But he does more than straight counting. He's got a pretty good one to one correlation. He can count objects at least up to 9 well.. But he still has trouble if the objects are all jumbled up. He tends to count one over the actual number.. But he's better improving on that too.
He's been doing great with his books too. He's got quite a few books where he "reads" most of the words. We'll read and stop and he'll fill in the words he knows. Lucas completely amazed Greg today with the reading of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. He can read most of every page! "Moon.. Egg.. Leaf.." "Pop! Tiny Caterpillar" "One apple, still hungry" "Two pears, still hungry".... so on and so on to "a beautiful butterfly!" (He added "a" to that for the first time today :-))
The other impressing he did today was with food. Lucas feeds himself with a spoon and fork really well most of the time. We had fried rice today and he was able to scoop, lift, and feed without spilling anything most of the time! Not bad :-) He still prefers using his hand but if he sees us using a fork or a spoon, he wants to also.. It's good to know he's got a little Nepali in him though ;-)
He's eating well enough. He'll still pretty much eat anything but not a lot of anything..... except sweets.. *shakes head* He has his parents' sweet tooth. He loves chocolate.. We just recently found out that he loves peeps (ew!) But he likes the healthier stuff too. His favorite is still fruits. Can't get enough of it. Blueberries, grapes, strawberries, oranges..... any well... I don't think we've still encountered a fruit he dislikes.. (he loves tomatoes too, or as he calls them, 'nanos')
Hehe.. he likes talking on the phone. It's too cute. He'll told it to his ear, start walking around and talk. "Hellooo!" The first thing he does is tell the person what he's doing. Every time! "Daddy, book, reading." And he'll repeat it until the other person repeats it, showing that they understand what he's saying. LOL! This can be a long process.. Usually involves me repeating him loud enough for the other person to hear me... But this isn't as easy as it sounds because he will not let you take the phone back unless you ask him nicely.
But that brings me to his best quality. He will share with anyone if you ask nicely. You don't ask him to give it to you. You ask him to share. Even his favorite toys.. food.. anything. He let Ashish have a bite of his last peep yesterday! BUT he's learned to say no. He checks to see if he has to share and if he doesn't have to when he doesn't want to, he'll polite say, "no". He is very polite. Says, Please, Thank You, Excuse me (for burps & farts) and he says "Bless you" when you sneeze.
I love my boy. I could continue forever but my back hurts and my hands are cramping :-)
**I was going to write about Kiran leaving but I'm not ready**